I’m coming up for air after some deadlines that couldn’t be delayed anymore, so I finally got around to watching the Mitt-Bain movie today. It is disgusting — something you’d expect from Michael Moore or Occupy Wall Street. It plays on every juvenile prejudice in the book (Romney heckled, hands counting wads of cash, Romney speaking French, Romney statements out of context repeated again and again) It is wildly inaccurate even in what little it tells us about Bain (two of the four companies were not under Romney’s direction when the job losses occurred). Moreover, we learn very little even about the four companies profiled (like whether they would have survived had Bain not intervened) — all we hear is that, because of Mitt Romney personally, parents had to raid the college funds and skip meals so their children could eat. I’m surprised there wasn’t a Romney look-alike pushing a wheelchaired granny off the cliff — maybe she could even have landed on the Paul Ryan wheelchaired granny.
I realize that Romney started the attack ads and ran a lot of them. This is not a paean to Mitt, whom I like but about whom I have concerns — especially in an election in which Obamacare is so central to our case. But I’ve given a very hard time to people around here when I thought they were being unfair to Newt and Rick Perry. I don’t think I was wrong to do that, because I still think it was unfair. But I have to confess to feeling pretty embarrassed right now.
This film is shameful, and to recommend it or draw arguments out of it is shameful. I’m not saying the film ought to be banned — politics, as someone recently recalled, ain’t beanbag. This is exactly the sort of thing the Obama folk will be doing, so we might as well find out if Mitt can take a punch — and I sure wish someone in Romneyland were reading Kevin or Avik, who’ve made great responsive cases while the campaign has been flatfooted. But for me, for what little it may be worth, the movie is much less a discredit to Mitt Romney than to people who are sullying themselves by promoting it and drawing “vulture” narratives out of it.
I found the movie hilarious - this ain't beanbag. Still happy with the Romney pick?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe only good thing to come out of this disaster ad is it will toughen up Mitt's hide and give him time to practice a response because you know it will be used by the DNC. The funny part is the DNC has already made a video spouting this junk but now they can use Newt's mess.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRonmey's message these days seems to be: "I like to fire people and to evade taxes! Viva Wall Street greed and a tax system that Wall Street people like me created!"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCalling Mitt Romney a "vulture capatilist" is insulting. Insulting to vultures!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIs Newt really promoting this video that much? He said himself during the debates last week, that he hoped the video was accurate; and he said this having not yet seen the video. The bigger question here as well is, that if a candidate has no legal right to talk to a Super PAC that "supports" him/her, what's to stop a Super PAC from pretending to support a candidate, while running ads that make the candidate look bad.
Meanwhile, when the negative ads against Newt rained down on him from mid-December to Iowa; all the Conservative media who are now on Newt's case were all on Christmas vacation, including and especially Rush Limbaugh. I listen to Rush daily, but it's getting to the point where someone should ask him. "Hey Rush, all this talking you do, and year after year what are the results?"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have never laughed so hard at an internet post as I did at the image of Mitt Romney's wheelchair granny landing on Paul Ryan's wheelchair granny at the bottom of the cliff. I guess I must be some special kind of mean old rightwinger to find that so funny.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell said, Mr. McCarthy.
Where to even begin with that disgusting, disingenuous, dishonest video?
How about here for starters: External Link
It turns out that the claims in there are simply false!
But even if they were true.
How idiotic it is to claim that Romney and Bain "gutted" firms of all their assets, stripped them bare, saddled them with more debt than they could handle, and THEN flipped them for a profit!
Who on earth bought them at a price that yielded Bain such a fantastic profit if the firms had been so obviously gutted??
Doesn't basic economics, let alone common sense, tell us that if a buyer was willing to pay much more than Bain had, that buyer believed that Bain had added value to the firm?
The use of those poor ex-employees is nothing short of exploitation. Those folks are uninformed. The one lady has some kind of degnerative nerve problem and keeps shaking.
All of them rue the loss of their "good paying jobs" which had provided such a mother lode for them before Bain came to town. Believe me, I understand how hard it was on those people. And it's sad. But, does anyone stop to think that maybe, just maybe, part of the reason those firms were in trouble and needed Bain was that these people were wildly overpaid and inefficient? Is that possible?
Newt Gingrich has reached new lows of dishonesty.
Here's a prediction. After he is finally shown the exit, he will wait a couple of weeks, maybe months, maybe even a year or two. And then he will announce that he is now a member of the Democrat party.
It's coming folks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA legitimate point of the attack ad, and one Romney will have to answer, is what alternatives to outsourcing or closure did you examine at Bain? Romney claims he can cause worthwhile economic growth that will generate jobs with growth and development opportunities- how & where? Why hasn't he revealed specific private job sector growth plans? GW Bush talked about Americans having "a" job. Americans want jobs with growth prospects in flourishing industries not re-engineered American sweatshops.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell when things get you down nothing is better than some tea. External Link
And I agree that this has been a disgrace External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have promised to vote for whoever wins the Republican nomination. Now, I might have to reconsider if it were Gingritch or Perry
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have promised to vote for whomever wins the Republican nomination. Now, I may have to reconsider if it were Gingritch or Perry.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIndeed Mr. McCarthy, it is disgraceful.
Your post is a welcome sight.
"I realize that Romney started the attack ads..."
But this is not accurate. Certainly, Mr. Romney's supporters are responsible for the negative ads on his behalf. But the most negative political Ads in beginning in Iowa can be attributed to the Ron Paul Campaign. Also, Mr. Gingrich's supporters via various PACs, including "Winning Our Future" and "Strong America Now" ran numerous negative ads targeting others as well, especially Mr. Romney. Matt Strawn, the Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa actually resigned from Strong American Now because of the ugly attacks on Mr. Romney. This concept Romney 'began it' is part of the old Washington Insider script which Gingrich (and some of the Media spin) tried to portray all the efforts coming from Romney. It is just a big stretch.
However, someone should get a hold of Mr. Krauthammer, who provided an entirely misguided offering via the Special Panel this evening. He was blowing with some Beltway nonsense and the populist winds, believing this was all devastating for Mr. Romney. It is clearly not. Every time Romney is attacked on his Private Sector success, he appears to grow stronger int he Primary:
"Gallup: Mitt Romney has widest lead to date in GOP race"
This is what this entire General Election is all about, the powerful Private Sector potentially symbolized by Mr. Romney's Free Market competence if he gains the Nomination vs. the dreadful Public Sector malaise depicted by the ugly Obama/Democratic Party failure.
This issue, with Bain in relation, is exactly what Conservatives want to be debating in the General Election, highlighting the essential need to empower the Private Sector. The positives of the US Free Market is an essential running mate for any GOP Nominee, and should never be denied, especially at this time - after the Democratic Partisans have trashed the US economy.
It is as if Charles and others who are telling us to be afraid of "Bain" politically, have forgotten just how unpopular the 'occupy' lunacy is today. It is as if some so-called conservative pundits may truly not understand serious Free Market economics and Our US Capitalist system after all - as they run scared from or even embrace weak populist sophistry.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseyou are so right.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"It plays on every juvenile prejudice in the book (........., Romney speaking French),"
The fact that speaking French is seen as a negative thing by many conservatives is so sad and a reflection of the creeping anti-education, anti-book learnin' wing of the party.
As an immigrant from UK who voted for Thatcher- i was stunnned to see this anti-education strand in some US conservatives - Thatcher and the conservatives were extremely pro-education- even when it came to learning other languages!
The fact that Dems are now using this to turn conservatives against their own candidates, makes the whole thing even more bizarre.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJohn Kerry spoke French too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith the language thing, I think more on the right the problem is not with speaking a second language as much as it being French, if it were Spanish nobody would care. Personally I'm fine with someone speaking French, many of the founding fathers learned French. It is a useful language to learn, a lot of people speak French and not all of them are in France. Hating all things France is getting kind of old if you ask me.
But I do notice some of the anti-intellectualism on the right and I never liked it, it should not be a prerequisite to have a degree from Harvard or Yale when running for President, but certainly it should not be a liability, unless they sound like Elizabeth Warren or Cornel West or whatever nutty faculty member from the Ivies.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd whose fault is it that the Ivy League pedigree has become poisonous to the conservative grassroots?
Why is it verboten---good German word there---to be anti-intellectual/anti-elitist but just find to be an insufferable snob, as so many of the NROniks are?
I've never been to a NASCAR race and I speak French at a conversational level. Yet I would much rather spend an evening discussing Dale Earnhardt at a pigpicking than spend a single minute at one of David Frum's cocktail parties.
But then I prefer Americans to Euro wannabes pretending to be expats because they believe flyover country to be beneath them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOpposition to the pretensions of intellectuals has a long pedigree on the Right. Tell Thomas Sowell or Paul Johnson they don't have the cognitive credibility to mock the anointed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFrum or NASCAR...wow
You are really laying the identity politics stuff on there thick tonight.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIs there any photographic evidence anywhere that Romney and Frum have ever met each other? Let alone go to the same cocktail parties.
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